Comedian Doug Stanhope engaged in a remarkable act of charity, raising over $100,000 for an atheist family in Oklahoma whose home fell to a tornado. The Raw Storyreports:

“I didn’t do it because I felt sympathy because she got all her sh*t destroyed by a tornado. I did it simply to be a prick to her Okie Christian neighbors,” Stanhope said in a video uploaded to YouTube on Monday. “It’s funny how hate can make you do real nice things every now and then.”

After a tornado ripped through the town of Moore, Oklahoma in May, CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked resident Rebecca Vitsmun if she thanked the Lord for surviving. She replied that she was an atheist.

“If you didn’t think that took balls you’ve never been to Oklahoma,” Stanhope remarked. “Saying ‘I’m an atheist’ in Oklahoma is like screaming ‘Jihad’ at airport security. It took some nuts.”

“If you watch the footage, all the other victims are on the news thanking Jesus for only killing their neighbors and not them, while a crawler is on the screen telling me where I can text money to help them out,” Stanhope said.

“F*ck them. I don’t want Jesus getting credit for my $50. I’ll help that other girl out. She ain’t got no Jeebus, she gonna need money.”

Cutting through Stanhope’s coarse rhetoric, his giving was certainly motivated by sympathy. He may not have been particularly moved by Vitsmun’s physical loss, but he was clearly moved by her irreligious expression. He sought to affirm her values with a gift of money, an act fundamentally no different from any charity.

Stanhope’s perception of Christianity proves noteworthy. Three specifics manifest. First, he compares professing atheism in Oklahoma to “screaming ‘Jihad’ at airport security.” He then portrays Christian gratitude as somehow malevolent, “thanking Jesus for only killing [others].” Finally, he states that he does not want Jesus getting credit for his $50 donation. Let’s take these in turn.

Speaking as an atheist, I think Doug Stanhope is a jerk. I was raised in a religious family and have lived in close proximity to Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, Methodists, and Episcopalians for half a century now. His depiction of them is a vicious caricature. In the wake of disasters, they don't "thank Jesus for only killing their neighbors and not them," and I defy him to produce any direct quotations that support that claim. What they do is this: they donate or raise money, roll up their sleeves, and pitch in and help however they can. They DON'T ask whether you are a member of their faith before helping you, and if Stanhope says they do, he's a liar.

He's right about one thing: there is some social censure against atheists in the American heartland, and it's entirely the fault of jackasses like him. Most atheists are simply people who don't have any religious beliefs, such as myself. We don't mind at all that most other people do. You tend not to even be aware of us, because we don't make a point of shoving our lack of beliefs in anyone face; what would be the point of that? But that means that most people's perception of atheists is based on a few loud and obnoxious ones like Stanhope, who create the impression that we're all hateful, intolerant, anti-religious blowhards. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Philippians 21-25"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith"

There are many, many professed atheists who are actually anti-theists or theophobes. They actively hate God, the concept and the reality. And they do so because they cannot figure out a coherent theodicy, i.e., an explanation of why bad things happen to good people in a world ruled by a benevolent and just God.

My State, which is a deity to some of my fellow drivers according to their bumper stickers, commands me to wear my seatbelt. Its angels are more likely to be issuing very expensive tickets than ushering me to heaven.

Doug Stanhope is awesome. A libertarian atheist in show business who feels no need to kow-tow to either the doctrinaire Marxoid Left or the Christianist Right is a breath of fresh air. There's Stanhope and...Penn Jillette? Rock on, Doug.

The world system that this butt head is a part of believes, if there is a G-d how can it allow such suffering, when this very same world system turned it's back on G-d's righteous laws, and gave it 'self the suffering.

How do we know G-d's laws are righteous? G-d sent the word to live among us as a human, and die a perfect death for human in. I support the right of those who wish not to believe that.

Stanhope makes the colossal flaw of assuming that every person who came out of the rubble expressing thankfulness for their survival was actually a Christian. He also makes the absurd assumption that they were expressing thankfulness for their survival over their neighbors' dead bodies.

Should Stanhope ever be put in the unfortunate situation of having to survive a similar life-threatening situation, I'll be watching to see how he crawls out of the rubble and what he says. If he's not immediately weeping and self-flagellating over how he lived when so many more worthy people did not, I'll berate him for the hypocrite he'll have shown himself to be.